


Out to Lunch

by Kass



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Gen, post-cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8560150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: "What are you thinking?" Ravi had already put his menu down. He looked at Liv expectantly.
"I'm thinking if you want to share, you won't order vindaloo."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toomanysecrets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanysecrets/gifts).



> I did my best to take your prompt and run with it; I hope the result makes you happy!
> 
> Deep thanks to my beta, whose name will be added after reveals.

The day was dim and rainy. Liv was grateful when she reached Indian Express. The door closed behind her, bell jingling, and she inhaled the familiar scent of ginger and curry and garam masala. It wasn't too busy; she spotted Ravi right away. His face lit up when he saw her come in, and he tucked his cellphone into his back pocket as she made her way to the table.

"I ordered you chai," Ravi said, gesturing to the mug. Someone had inverted the saucer over the top of the mug, keeping the heat in, and when she lifted it she released a swirl of fragrant steam.

"You are the best." Liv hung her raincoat on the back of her chair and wrapped her hands around the chai.

Ravi smiled magnanimously. "Of course I am." He had a mug too, but his was mostly empty.

"I'm sorry I kept you waiting." The mug felt good against Liv's cold palms, and its contents were spicy and sweet.

"A scant five minutes," Ravi said. "And I have the latest Mira Grant on my phone."

Liv shuddered. The zombies in Mira Grant's novels were shambling and horrific. Too much of a reminder of what she could have become. She didn't care how many times Ravi praised the woman's work to the skies: Liv had tried it once, backed away quickly, and had no intention of trying it again. "Busman's holiday? We really need to work on this whole concept of leisure reading."

Just then their waiter appeared. He was tall and young with a bored expression and two eyebrow piercings. Functionally interchangeable with half of the other waitstaff in Seattle, in other words. "Welcome to Indian Express. Do you know what you want?"

"I just got here," Liv said. "Can we have a second?"

"Sure," Eyebrow Piercings said, and went over to another table.

There was a moment of silence during which Liv perused her menu.

"What are you thinking?" Ravi had already put his menu down. He looked at Liv expectantly.

"I'm thinking if you want to share, you won't order vindaloo."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Ravi grinned.

"Gone, evidently, along with my tolerance for anything on this menu with five chili peppers next to its name."

Eyebrow Piercings came back, evidently having noticed that they weren't holding menus any more. "Do you know what you want yet?"

"I'll have chicken tikka masala," Ravi said, with a put-upon air.

Liv gave the waiter her sunniest smile. "Palak paneer for me, please. Some onion naan for the table? Thanks."

When the waiter had gone, Ravi leaned forward conspiratorially. "Your mention of vindaloo prompts me to query: do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?" Liv wrinkled her nose. "Being able to eat scotch bonnet chiles whole? Not exactly."

"Not that," Ravi protested. "The good parts. You know, the -- knowing things."

"Am I seriously hearing nostalgia from you about this?"

"I think inhabiting other people's memories would be fascinating."

"You can only think that because you never actually had to do it."

"And I miss having you at the morgue," Ravi admitted.

Liv felt a surge of warmth. "Aww, Ravi. I miss working with you. Nobody at the hospital even comes close."

"To matching my practical tactical brilliance?"

"You're not the Marquis de Lafayette," Liv countered. "And what I miss is hanging out with you, not your scientific acumen."

"I have it on good authority that my scientific acumen is top-notch, thank you very much."

And that was a sobering reminder. The director of the CDC had said that the cure was some of the most brilliant work she'd ever seen, and that it was a travesty that Ravi wouldn't get appropriate credit for it. "You should have won a Nobel Prize," Liv said, not for the first time.

Ravi shrugged. "In order for that to happen, they would've had to have told everyone it was prophylaxis for zombie-ism, and either that would have sparked a mass panic or no one would have taken it seriously." They'd had this conversation before. Sometimes Liv thought Ravi was as proud of the subterfuge of sneaking the vaccine into this year's flu shots as he was of actually figuring out the cure. "Anyway, you're okay now. Honestly, that's all that matters."

"You're a marshmallow, Ravi Chakrabarti."

"A marshmallow who feels strangely nostalgic now about that time you talked in iambic pentameter for three days."

Liv groaned. "That was the worst." She still got twitchy at the thought of seeing a Shakespeare play. Something about that rhythm was too damn catchy, and the poet whose brain she had eaten had been absolutely fucking fixated on it.

"Or the week you spent on astrophysicist brain."

"I still think I almost solved the cosmological constant problem." She still felt wistful, remembering what it had felt like to be so close, but she couldn't remember any of the actual insights. It was a little bit like being the guy in Flowers from Algernon, if they'd been able to halt his decline. Brains were weird. "Anyway, no, I don't miss it."

"I expect it makes you a better doctor."

"Why, because now I know what it's like to have a horrendous incurable condition? One that turns out not to actually be incurable, but we didn't know that for certain until last month?"

"Because you have an unusual and deep kind of empathy for different kinds of people," Ravi corrected her. "You've _been_ so many different kinds of people. I think it changes how you relate to the world."

"I was always myself," Liv protested, but even as the words came out of her mouth she knew they were pro forma. "I mean, I was and I wasn't."

"I think having been a zombie makes you a better doctor," Ravi said. "So there."

"I'm not sure why we're arguing about this, but okay," Liv said. Just then their waiter appeared with lunch, and as he was putting the plates down on the table she said "so tell me what I've missed in the wild and wooly world of the city morgue," and took a perverse pleasure in watching the waiter blanch and skitter away.

Ravi's eyes danced, amused. "That was not nice."

Liv feigned innocence. "Oh, do you think I upset him?"

"You might have done, yes."

Liv shrugged. "Oh well. Seriously, what have I missed?"

"Not a thing," Ravi said. "It's been quiet as a graveyard. The kind without any zombies in it," he hastened to add. "And I, for one, am grateful."

"Preach," Liv agreed, and reached over with her fork to spear a piece of chicken off of his plate.


End file.
